New Year Surprise

This beautiful patchwork postcard arrived in the post this morning from Ati in Norway it was a complete surprise and just at a time when I needed a bit of cheer, thank you so much Ati!!

I'd also like to wish you all a Happy and Peaceful 2009

A Quiet Time and A finished Piece !

Well we got thro' the two festive days quietly, only OH and myself plus my Aunt, the visit to Mum on Christmas day wasn't good as it was one of her really bad days. I had lots of lovely gifts, good food and a really exciting moment when I pulled a cracker and out popped a little pack of mini dominoes all ready for altering(how sad is that). Roy and I have treated ourselves to a Nintendo DS, my idea for brain training for Roy??, and also for his beloved Suduko, I just happened to buy a scrabble game to use with it and I'm hooked as it's so long since I had anyone to play scrabble with and I find that there are 'mini people' in the game that play with you - it's wonderful!Perhaps by the time Roy has used up all his saved suduko from the papers and the book I bought him , I will be ready to share with him.

At last I have finished my 'Church ' piece that was inspired by the work of Beryl Taylor and that was started in the summer,The picture was transferred to fabric using Bondaweb then attached to a layer of green then gold fabric and creased calico, it was then embellished with small pieces of stamped card, dictionary papers and watersoluble paper and finished off with beads and sequins, a metal heart and a cross. The surrounding gold fabric was covered in seed stitch.It is my first try at this sort of work and I'm pleased with it , I just have to decide on its framing.

Happy Christmas

Wishing all my blogging friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Peaceful New Year.

It Pays to Listen

When they gave out brains,
I thought they said 'trains'
I missed mine.

When they gave out looks, I thought they said 'books'
I didn't want one.

When they gave out noses,
I thought they said 'roses'
I asked for a red one.

When they gave out chins,
I thought they said 'gins'
I asked for a double.

When they gave out heads,
I thought they said 'beds'
I asked for a soft one

IT PAYS TO LISTEN !

I found this sorting thro' Mum's things
so thought I would share it with you all,
altho' some of you have probably read it before.

Just Words today.

For the last few days we have been packing up my Mum's bungalow, an awful job which has made me very sad but unfortunately it has to be done,there is still a few days work left in there before we clear it altogether. My Mum hasn't asked about it at all and I hate to mention it to her for fear of upsetting her, perhaps we are waiting for each other to say something. I am storing all her ornaments and bits and pieces at our home as I can't bring myself to get rid of them so we are pretty full up in the garage and loft - really must get rid of all our unused and unecessary stuff - perhaps a good new years resolution - lots of trips to the charity shop and local tip. Anyway no pics to post today as i haven't felt like crafting when I get back home.

Dans ma maison il ya....Painter

This challenge has given me the chance to use the pallette rubber stamp for the first time, I have had it for many years lying unused in a drawer but every stamp has its day! I used gesso to tone down the background a little then added the other collage pics, perhaps the easel doesn't show up to much but i know it's there.

Lucky Bag

I was lucky enough to win the pictured bag on Sue's giveaway, she had made the bag in a workshop then added more embellishments at home, thank you Sue for my first ever giveaway win.

Art Creation Friday

We had to make a piece using the image of this lady for this challenge, here is my atc 'Music in the Air'

Beading.

Up to about three years ago I was Beading on a regular basis, I have stopped this in favour of mixed media work but I thought I would share this photo of a Christmas Angel Bauble that I made around four years ago, it is made up of six panels of Peyote stitch, I have to admit to being very proud of this piece and have it out on show at christmas , I keep it in my craft room during the year as there is too much work in it to be hidden away.Not the easiest of things to photograph, I may have to try again.

Short Break

OH and I just had a short break away, Monday we went up to Shrewsbury, pottered around the shops and stayed overnight at a local Travelodge then Tuesaday we drove to Stourbridge to visit Connie, it was a lovely visit with lots of chatter and swapping of gifts, she had made us a delicious lunch with a very sinful sweet!, I'm afraid my photo of us both is a bit blurry, must have been the glass of wine Roy had at lunchtime! - unfortunately we got back home in time to go with my Mum into hospital and finally get home again at 1.45am, luckily she was only there overnight and is back in the nursing home today, she is really not having a happy time at the moment.

Dans ma Maison il ya .....Marie - Antoinette

This is the first time I have entered this challenge so as i liked the theme and had just used Marie Antoinette on an atc I thought I'd give it a go, I've kept it simple with just collage and lace so I hope it fits in with the other entries.

Art Creations Friday # 2

The challenge was to use the background to be found here to make a card or an atc, I decided to combine it with an altered playing card atc - I stamped and collaged the background then finished it with paper lace and ribbon, the result - a French Queen, perhaps the black ribbon fits her eventual fate.

Theme Thursday

This is my atc for this weeks Theme Thursday challenge - Santa. I really love this Santa image and have used it a lot this year.

Award

My friend Jan has passed the Marie Antoinette - 'a Real Person -A Real Award' award onto to me and I thank you Jan, it has been so good to get to know and become friends with people who we first met on various forums and in some cases be lucky enough to meet them ,as I have with Jan. I am going to pass this to two people who have also become friends, Wendy who I have met and Connie who I am looking forward to meeting next week. My thanks to these people for their friendship and please pass on this award if you wish. I have also been awarded the Gold Card award by my friend Judy and rather than single any one person to pass it on to I am giving it to all my blogging friends- an early cyber christmas present!

Waste Not!

Today I made up some atcs for a hosted swap and the fabric that was left I made into a postcard, I pieced the fabric and used my 'onboard' machine embroidery stitches then added some felt flowers - you may guess that the theme is shades of yellow and gold!

No Internet!

Who would think how lost you feel when you can't get on to the web, it's awful - you're cut off from the world - and we actually are aren't we? - we talk, via the PC, to people all over the world, then suddenly nothing and you have to do some work instead of surfing blogs!!! What did we do before the PC got us hooked. This happened to me yesterday but luckily only for the one day and tonight it's back to normal. I have been given an award and must pass it on so will do that tomorrow. The ATC pictured is for this weeks MAMMA swap and the theme is Christmas.

Catching up!

This week I am trying to finish off all the things I am making for little christmas gifts and I think tonight it will be write the christmas cards . It is likely that soon we will have to clear my Mum's home and I want everything finished by then, it is a job I am dreading - what will I do with it all?? - still must be done. The picture is another bit of machine felting I did last week.

Meeting Friends

What a lovey couple of days I've had, friday was spent with Viv and Jan at the Hobbycraft fair at the NEC,Birmingham, we kept bumping into other crafting friends, managed to buy some lovely things and have lots of laughs. As Jan and her OH were staying in Leicester, Roy and I met them for coffee on saturday morning then had a walk around the City, spending quite a bit of time in our Market where we bought lots of fruit and veg which was exceptionally low priced - 3 pineapples for £1 - wow - now that's a bargain and they were beautifully sweet and juicy.Today I have replaced the broken needles in my Embellisher machine and had a go at felting a flower piece then finishing it off with the dreaded machine embroidery - I actually think I may be getting a bit better at this finally. .

A lucky day!

First off I managed to put the finishing touches to my Christmas cards, a big sigh of relief, then the postie brought me a great atc made especially for me, by Renee (no blog) in America, as a swap for one of my fabric ones, the atc is called ' Little Bird Charmer' and I love it, I've posted the picture. Finally I checked my e mails and see I've won a great Handmade fibre bag in Sue's giveaway, I am so pleased as I never win anything so I'm looking forward to getting it.

Birds.

Getting back into the 'swing of things' with this stamped and collaged atc for a challenge swap, the theme of Birds was chosen by Wendy who 'won' the cards in a random draw, I know she collects bird themed atcs and it is one of my favourite themes also.

Home Again (and dry)!!

A very wet and foggy week away on the Yorkshire coast, we come back home and THE SUN IS SHINING!!, nevertheless we had a good break and went out and about despite the rain. We called in at Whitby on the way down and found that there had been a Goth weekend, lots of the Goths were still around and in full costume so I managed to get a photo of one group, they all looked so good and charity shops had all made arrangements of their black clothes and jewellry, I hope they had some good sales over the weekend.

Theme Thursday

The Theme Thursday challengethis week is Vintage so have made a simple Vintage ATC this afternoon, my last for a few days as I'm taking my Mum's Sister (89)away for a few days by the sea!!, lots of winter woolies in the suitcase. Mum is back in the Nursing home and seems settled altho' I still feel unhappy leaving her there, hopefully things will just about get back to normal now.

More Thanks

More thanks today go to Jan for also giving me the gold card award, thank you so much Jan.The pictures are my offering for the 'Trees' theme page in the Nature themed book Wendy, Jan and myself are putting together.

More Thanks

Double Award!

Double because two lovely people have awarded it to me, they are Margaret and Sue, it is awarded to 5 people, 4 who are regular followers of your blog and one from a different country who is new to your blog.Also link back to the blog that the award came from. I am passing it on to the following five bloggers :-
Connie
Doreen
Viv
Wendy
my fifth choice is from Germany and is Gabybee

Please ladies, pass it on to your blog followers.

Rushing about!

Seem to spend our days rushing from one place to another, have marched along miles of hospital corridors again in the last few days, takes me back to my days of nurses training in the 60's.I'm afraid in the evenings I'm just flopped in front of the TV, most unlike me but just can't make the effort to do anything else (must be getting old)then a quick check of blogland and then to bed. I see that my friend Margaret has awarded me a gold card, thank you so much and will make the effort to post it etc tomorrow. I had two more beautiful atcs from Angelique in France, her blog can be found here, her work is absolutely beautiful and I'm so privileged to be able to trade with her.

Just one more!

At the moment I'm trying to finish my Christmas cards, last year I said "no more making them" but then I think - just a few - now I've had enough so will put the finishing touches to them and buy some if necessaary, trouble is everyone expects handmade these days. I managed to make another altered playing card atc in the midst of everything else.

Back to visiting.

A week in the nursing home and Mum is back in hospital again, she looks as if she has gone 10 rounds with Joe Frazier after a fall due to her BP dropping suddenly when she stood up, 8 weeks in hospital and still not sorted, just back from visiting , her eyes are open today and she is talking but she has been so poorly, old age can be really unkind. I really seem to get on with things in a morning, before breakfast even,so today I managed two altered playing cards for a hosted swap, may try to get a couple more done for my atc swaps stash.

A crafty morning.

Had a free morning for a change and finished off my book pages and made these two fabric based atcs, for the gipsy one I have used a picture of my Gipsy wall hanging that I made in the summer and have put it onto a background of scrim and lace embellished onto felt.

Ornaments

I decided to go in for Beate Knapps ornament swap and ended up making five seasonal hanging ornaments as pictured here. I now must get on with some papercrafting, the next pages for the book are half done and i have committed to some atc swaps, a bit of fabric a bit of paper that's how I work, trouble is I want to do so much!

Warts and All!

One thing that I would love to do reasonably well is free machine embroidery and I really have problems with it, so annoying. Anyway at Ally Pally I did a Janome Embellisher workshop and the end result was what could be a spectacle case, I managed to make a semblance of an Iris but then brought it home to machine stitch, I really think it looked better before the stitching but I'll show it warts and all.

Unpacked at last!

At last I've unpacked my goodies from Ally Pally last week - did I really buy all that (see photo)??

Motivated.

Feeling a lot more settled today, have checked on Mum in her new 'home', or rather spoke to the Matron who assures me she's ok, I'm not to visit until monday to give her time to settle down so I am feeling more motivated to get crafty again, these things really Knock you for six.
The picture is this weeks MAMMA swap, a Vintage Tag ATC.

Back Home Again!

Well back for another round of reality, hopefully by the end of this week my Mum will be settled into her new 'home' so it will be a busy week get all her 'things' sorted out, I just hope all goes smoothly (please!!) We had a long weekend outside London and visited the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexander Palace, a great show and I met Dale Rollerson ,who I did the online Embellisher course with, and of course bought some lovely goodies from her. I haven't actually unpacked my purchases yet!!! The photo's I have posted here are of the wonderful 'Hyperbolic Coral Reef' that is being 'built' in crochet by people from all walks of life in the UK. The idea originated in the US and this project is to highlight the plight of the coral reefs from global warming and pollution. My contribution can be seen on the small photo, the sticky out bit underneath the fluffy pom pom piece.

A Beautiful Trade.

How beautiful is this ATC?,it came from Angelique in france,the embroidery is exquisite!!! I can't stop looking at it so at the moment it's propped in front of my screen.

Another Challenge.

Like Margaret I thought I would have a go at the Mind Wide Open challenge mainly because i loved the 'shabby' theme picture of the two little girls, anyway i ended up making a large tag using collaged papers, fabric and lace, grunge board and an embossed jigsaw piece.The title for the picture is 'All dressed up' All votes gratefully received on wednesday I think on the above site, there's a voucher at stake altho' as Margaret has said we are up against some mighty good artists so no chance really.

To brighten the day!

Have just posted this ATC, which has gone to France,to help brighten up a really horrible wet Sunday morning.

Theme Thursday

Thought I'd have a go at the 'Theme Thursday' challenge this week, Road Trip is the theme so I made an atc collaged with rubber stamped images from Paris and Italy then added a printed image of an old touring car and a title strip - it works for me!

This and That.

These two ATCs complete the mixed media fabric swap going off to the US, I've used a transparency on each one and like the effect. I'm still working on my 'Church' piece and also on an Embellisher made piece that will be going off to Australia for Dale's challenge, it has to be there by end of January so I should manage it. The news re my Mum, who is still in hospital, is that we have been advised that she needs ongoing care in a Nursing Home, I'm very sad about this but realise it is the best for her altho' I don't think she would agree.

Surprise packet.

I had a surprise packet of fabric sent yesterday from Viv, one of the pieces had stamp pictures and script etc on it and was crying out to be used in an atc so I made two, mixing fabric,paper and transparencies, they are to go to a hosted swap in America, I am pleased with the effect.

Tuesdays challenge.

This weeks 'Created by Hand Challenge' has a Halloween theme as we are asked to use a coffin template for our challenge piece, so here is my ATC with a 'witchy woman' within the template.